Carousel

I’m obsessed with carousels. The hand carving and hand painting on the original carousels are mesmerizing to me, they symbolize to me the beauty that comes with hand made craftsmanship. I have this book, Painted Ponies, that I love flipping through to see the history of carousel art. It shows the transformation of the art from simple horse designs to elaborate exotic animals (My favorite being a Hippocamp, mythical fish tailed horse)

As I’ve grown in my mobile making, I now see the world as a mobile. Every time we go to the zoo I group animals together to see who would fit on a mobile together, I watch their behavior wondering what item I would put with them or what stance I would make them in. It makes for a fun (and jumbled) mindset. So for me I knew I wanted to make a carousel mobile because of my love for the turning animals and its perfect for a mobile because as us Grey’s Anatomy lovers know the carousel never stops turning. My ideas for a carousel mobile have varied in design and size but trying to actually make what I was envisioning was actually much more difficult than I assumed. There are so many designs of horses that carousel makers designed that vary from simple rose covered manes to elaborate armored stallions. Then there are lions, cats, bears, giraffes, etc. So picking just a couple to turn into felt was the most difficult part of the design for me. I still have plans to make different types of animals for my carousels but for now I have one design and I’m in love with it.

My first carousel mobile design has a basic horse design embellished with glitter felt and an armored type horse with a multi-colored tail. I’m excited to turn these carousel mobiles into regulars in my shop and I can’t wait to play with more designs for horses and more, maybe even a Hippocamp!